Chocolates
by Kamitra
Summary: A Tokyo Babylon story about Subaru on a job on Valentine's Day. This job has nothing to do with the holiday romance, however. Slight humor, angst, philosohpy, etc.


Author's Notes: Chalk this up under one of my morning plot bunnies (most of them are night time, btw). Stupid bunnies attacking me when I'm defenseless... and when I have HOMEWORK. Damned bunnies...  
  
Notes for Ff.net: A bit of editing, and spelling check. _; This was originally posted on CLAMPesque around Valentines day, but only as a draft. A draft full of errors at that. Some of the phrasing is strange.  
  
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Chocolates  
  
If there was one reason why Subaru Sumeragi had never learned very much about Valentine's Day customs, it was because he never attended school on that day. Or the whole week, for that matter. Many spirits that caused trouble also had broken hearts, so Valentine's season was always a time when one spirit or another was disturbing the public by doing things such as knocking shelves of chocolate displays over and such.  
  
Thus Subaru was always busy with jobs on February 14th.  
  
When he asked his sister what the special day was about, she merely told him, "Well, it depends on what country you live in, but basically, you give gifts like chocolate to ones you love or respect." (Leave it to Hokuto to choose the ambiguous middle path.)  
  
Today was no exception to the rule. Subaru looked at the map in his hand and looked again at the apartment building. Apparently, a loud wailing could be heard from the abandoned northeast condo from the second floor every night. The wives of the apartment complex complained to the owner and the police that the noise disrupted their children's entrance exam studies, but neither could find a reason for the cries, and eventually, someone suggested that they call an onmyouji to look at the place. This is where Subaru came in.  
  
He sighed and climbed up the stairwell. It was a beige color and made a slightly metallic sound as his boots hit each step. The walls were also beige, and the sky was a faint pale. Altogether, the scene was quite colorless... not that Subaru minded any. He wasn't one to notice things like that. Instead, he did notice a change in the air...  
  
...and it felt like someone was crying?  
  
The slight tinge of despair in the air made Subaru swallow harshly. It seemed to permeate throughout his lungs and it became harder to breathe, all while the smell and humidity combined to make a mixture that seemed to be designed to make one gasp for breath.  
  
Smell?  
  
Subaru tried to breathe in slowly, and yes, there was some sort of scent. Of something waxy and... much like coffee, only different...  
  
He had reached the room designated. He knocked on the door as unobtrusively as he could.  
  
No answer.  
  
He knocked again, but when no reply was heard, he decided to make his way inside. "Excuse me..."  
  
He could hear the slightest humming as the sounds of cooking tickled his ears. The feeling of someone crying was even thicker now. He looked down and saw that there was a pair of guest slippers on the side. It looked as if someone was expecting him. He quickly sat on the entranceway and changed footwear. The floor was slightly dusty but overall clean. The walls were a nice wooden color, matching the floor.  
  
He felt something was amiss, but couldn't remember what it was. Maybe it was because there were no decorations on the walls, which made it look as if someone had deserted the place. It wasn't unheard of for the residents to move before he could finish the job, thinking he couldn't do anything. As likely as the answer might be, that didn't seem to be the case this time.  
  
He peeked into the room to his left, where he saw an elderly woman stirring a pot. He tried to get her attention.  
  
"Excuse me..."  
  
The woman turned around and smiled. "Oh, you must speak up! My hearing is not that good these days. My apologies for any inconvenience that might have caused you.."  
  
"Oh no, no," the young onmyouji denied. "I just came here on my own..."  
  
"Then you're just in time then," she replied, still stirring. "I'm almost finished with this batch. Can you take out the molds for me? They're in the bottom left cabinet, upper drawer."  
  
Confused, Subaru took the star molds out. "U-umm..."  
  
"Can you hold them still? Thank you," she said as she took the pot and scooped out chocolate with a wooden spoon. "There."  
  
Subaru blinked and wondered what he was really doing here. Still, he wasn't one to keep aid from anyone, so he waited until she looked as if she was finished. She placed the pot into the sink and poured some water into it. Then some soap. Then she began to scrub it.  
  
"Ah... excuse me?"  
  
"Oh! Sorry, you must be bored watching me do this. Please, go and talk to my son while these are cooling." She smiled as she waved Subaru off. "He's been sort of depressed these days, so I decided to make some chocolate. It always cheered him up when he was younger, but now that I guess he's a teenager..." her look turned distant, but she quickly turned back to him with a smile. "If it's not a trouble, could you talk to him?"  
  
Subaru nodded and left the room.  
  
As soon as he stepped outside, the scent of tears filled his lungs again. As he walked down the hallway, he began to hear quiet sobbing. From the left. He turned toward the doorway. A little boy sat in the corner of a bed, crying. So this is where all the activity was coming from. He quietly sat down next to the boy and tried to give the boy a friendly smile and the standard question.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
The boy mumbled something that he couldn't catch. "What?"  
  
This time it was a half-mumble, half-sob. Subaru shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't think I-"  
  
"I SAID GO AWAY!!!"  
  
"!!" The impact from that voice hit him dead on, and the walls reverberated and the pictures on the walls clattered in response. Stuffed animals fell from their shelf positions. The boy suddenly realized what he did and started crying again. Subaru stood up to pick up some of the fallen stuffed animals. One was a cute little elephant with yellow ears. It looked like an infant's toy.  
  
"...I-I t-told you..." the boy choked out. Subaru merely smiled at him.  
  
"What's your name?"  
  
"Ken'ei."  
  
"Do you like chocolate, Ken'ei-kun?"  
  
The boy nodded.  
  
Subaru took out a small box from his jacket pocket. The boy blinked away his tears and suddenly seemed to notice the onmyouji's strange clothing. Subaru opened the little box, and four pieces of chocolate were inside. "Here, you can help me eat this while your mother's is cooling in the kitchen."  
  
The boy took a piece and nibbled on it quietly for a while. As he took another, he asked, "It's good. Did someone make this?"  
  
"My older sister made it. She gives me a box every year," he explained.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome. Can you tell me why you killed yourself, Ken'ei-kun?"  
  
"I-I don't remember anything."  
  
Subaru let the lie pass. At the boy's state, it wasn't much of a lie anyway. At most, he could only had a vague feeling as to why, which probably gave him even more reason to dodge the truth. He grasped the yellow elephant gently and held it quietly in his arms. "Then... can you tell me who this little girl was?"  
  
"How did you know she was girl?"  
  
Subaru looked down. The yellow elephant had blue eyes and pink padding on the ears and feet. It had a smiling face. Guileless, like a very young child's. "Because... I can hear the girl crying."  
  
Something within the boy snapped and his voice broke. "I didn't do it! I couldn't help it!"  
  
Subaru looked up and tried to calm Ken'ei down with his words. "The girl has already moved on. She was too young to remember much, so there was nothing to tie her down. The crying I heard is a memory of her... your memory, right?" Subaru looked away before he could see the evidence of his statement on the older boy's face. "The only person that hasn't passed in this house is you. So could you tell me about her?"  
  
The teenager looked away. "She was... ... I killed her. I couldn't help it...! I had just lost my job then, and I was drinking all the money away... but all my wife would do was scold me day in and day out to do something useful around the house rather than simply spend it, and suddenly, I lost it..."  
  
Ken'ei cried, and as the tears touched the stuffed animal, it turned into blood. "I don't remember anything... but I woke up to see Kana on the floor bleeding to death, and she was holding our daughter... whose neck was broken. I suddenly... I remembered how we used to fight and I would hit her..."  
  
The young man broke down, his hair touching his knees as his feet rested on the wooden floor. "I... I knew it was me... I never meant to..."  
  
"...I never... meant... any of it..." He stopped, then continued in a choked voice, "She... she was... always... the best... daughter... I could... asked... ...always smiling... ... ... and I... my wife was always... kind..."  
  
His voice was barely above a whisper. "...I... loved them."  
  
Subaru couldn't say anything. He had never been in this sort of situation before. How could he help someone who hurt someone else? He saw the man's pain and looked away. It was his job to help people like this, and yet... he always felt so inadequate. "I don't know if I can help you, but doing this to yourself won't give you forgiveness. All it does is cause more pain and suffering. If you truly wanted to be forgiven, you would have been already."  
  
The man's voice was bitter. "How?"  
  
"By realizing."  
  
Sensing that the man didn't quite understand, Subaru began to explain. "The single moment you realized the full consequences and enormity of what you had done, you made yourself forgiven. Every spirit that's no longer on this realm has left all their joys, animosity, bitterness, despair, and hope behind. Those rest with the next generation of people. Every spirit has a chance to start over again, with an equal chance at happiness. Because your wife and daughter are no longer here, they must have already forgiven you.  
  
So now all you need to do is forgive yourself," Subaru said.  
  
"I can't! It's not that easy! It sounds so easy when you say it, but what I've done is unforgivable!"  
  
"Nothing is unforgivable..."  
  
"IT IS!!"  
  
This time, the impact hit Subaru physically. Before he had a chance to put up a kekkai, something flew in the way. Whatever it was absorbed most of the impact and Subaru merely had the wind knocked out of him, slamming him against the opposing wall. Coughing to jumpstart his breathing again, he pulled out his ofuda and threw them at the floor without hesitation.  
  
He concentrated briefly, and the walls shattered.  
  
Everything was an illusion. The cement walls now showed through and the bed broke into shards of glass.  
  
The spirit stared at the glass morbidly and touched it with his finger. It bled.  
  
Subaru picked up the elephant... now the only thing still solid in the room. He gave it to Ken'ei, who looked at the blood on his finger and the blood on the stuffed animal in curiosity.  
  
"No one wants to hurt themselves eternally because they cannot be forgiven," Subaru said as he walked towards the door. "You yourself have proof that you want to forgive yourself too."  
  
The middle-aged man looked up at him.  
  
"Otherwise, you wouldn't have had your mother make you chocolate in the kitchen." Subaru opened the door. "Otherwise... you wouldn't have let yourself be heard."  
  
An elderly woman came through the opened door with a smile. She didn't seem to notice the room's surroundings as she carried a tray. "I'm sorry to make you wait, but here's the chocolate. It'll cheer you up. You can always try again next year for that exam, Ken'ei."  
  
Ken'ei forced the words out. "She... my mother told me that after I failed the entrance exam. I didn't believe her, and so I started to work as a restaurant waiter... because I thought I wasn't good enough to enter college. She still supported me then, saying I should work for my dreams. In the end, I never did. I always thought that if I failed, I could never get a second chance. A lot of my friends thought that way too, and a few suicided."  
  
Silent tears started to drip down onto the cement. "In the end, it was my fault for hearing when I should have listened. Maybe that's what my wife kept pestering me about... maybe she wanted me to forgive my failures and try at my life again."  
  
Subaru smiled slightly. "You'll get your chance to now."  
  
Ken'ei smiled back, even as he cried. "Yes, I will, won't I. Thank you... and I never did catch your name..."  
  
"Sumeragi Subaru."  
  
The man smiled wryly. "Sumeragi, huh? I should have known..." At Subaru's look of confusion, he said, "My last name... it's Sakurazuka. Only a Sumeragi... could forgive a Sakurazuka."  
  
And then he was gone.  
  
Subaru made his way out the door of the bedroom. The stuffed animal was still there, but it now had blood stained all over it, as well as half the head torn off. The yellow face underneath still smiled innocently.  
  
The hallway was now a pale blue color, with the unpainted cement, as if the carpeting was ripped out. The walls were still undecorated, but now they had a quiet feel to them. As if they were merely waiting for a new owner. He walked down the cement steps and away from the apartment complex.  
  
Job completed.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Chi-ri-ri-ring.  
  
"Ah, Subaru-kun! I just finished work for today," Seishirou said with his usual pleasant smile as he looked up from some paperwork. "Let me get something to drink."  
  
"I just finished as well..." Subaru said, nervously. Sakurazuka Seishirou's office was always made him edgy, but perhaps it was due to the man's aura. Something about him just enraptured him. The way he walked, the way he smiled, the way he looked at him knowingly... he flushed as soon as he realized that he was staring. His embarrassment was broken off, though, when he put his hands into his into his pockets. He took his hands out, and looked at what was in his pockets.  
  
Inside each one was a wrapped piece of chocolate. Each was made in a simple star mold. He looked at one, and looked at Seishirou, who was busy with the iced tea.  
  
"U-um... Seishirou-san?"  
  
He looked up. "Yes my love?"  
  
"S-seishirou-san!" Subaru flushed with embarrassment at his usual jokes. Seishirou always made jokes of how much he liked being around the vet so much.  
  
"You don't approve? I do love you, after all..."  
  
"Quit joking around!"  
  
The vet made the most innocent look. "You think I'm joking?"  
  
"A-ah..." Subaru couldn't really say, but he must have been... right? Seishirou's expressions were always so difficult to read. It was as if there were always multiple ways to read them...  
  
"W-well, that is... I-I mean..." He looked down and saw what was in his hands.  
  
He shoved one to Seishirou. "Here!"  
  
Seishirou blinked at him. "For me?"  
  
Quick nod.  
  
"Why thank you, Subaru-kun. I love chocolate." Seishirou gifted Subaru with one of his simple, yet dazzling smiles. For some reason Subaru didn't quite understand, the vet's look of happiness always made him speechless and weak-kneed. Not to mention dizzy, confused, flushed...  
  
Chi-ri-ri-ring.  
  
"Y-you're welcome..."  
  
"Ohohohohohoho~! What a scene I've entered!" Hokuto, in one of her tamer outfits, bounced across the room just as Subaru flushed again. The young onmyouji didn't know what was going through his twin sister's mind, but it couldn't be good.  
  
She bounded over to Seishirou, who was nibbling on the chocolate. Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Sei-cha~~n, that chocolate wouldn't happen to be from Subaru, now would it?"  
  
The vet smiled. "Why, yes it is."  
  
"Good! This means we can start having Subaru try on wedding dresses!"  
  
"WHAT?!?!?! WHY?"  
  
Both Seishirou and Hokuto looked at Subaru's uncharacteristic outburst in surprise.  
  
They blinked almost in unison. Subaru blinked as well.  
  
The young onmyouji tried again. "...I mean... W-what makes you say something like that?"  
  
Seishirou was the first one to answer. "You mean... you didn't know that only women gave chocolate on Valentine's Day?"  
  
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Ending Notes:  
  
The references for this story came from several different things. One was a movie called Chocolat that my friend showed me. The second was the short stories of Ekuni Kaori that I've been reading (as much as I can, anyway), which often feature ghosts like the grandmother. The ghost that knocks over the chocolate displays, however, is not a ghost at all - it's the shadow card! I couldn't resist the CCS plug.  
  
Tried to make this as Tokyo Babylon-ish as possible, while mixing in a little romance for the season. But I failed. *cries* I wanted it to be a romance, but it turned into a comedy. *sobs*  
  
Feedback is good. Especially if something was amiss that you caught.  
  
And if you were wondering, Subaru still gives the other chocolate to his sister. ^_^ 


End file.
